The Interaction of OER Use and Course Difficulty on Student Course Grades in a Community College

Most importantly , the interaction between OER and standardized course difficulty was significant ( B = 0.248 , β = 0.039 , p < 0.001 ). The positive valence of the interaction term indicates that although the general trend ( main effect ) is for course grade to decrease with increased standardized course difficulty , the presence of OER blunts the impact of standardized course difficulty on course grades .

Table 1 . Regression of Course Grade on OER , GPA , Course Difficulty , Gender , Pell and Interaction between OER and Course Difficulty

Variable B β t p

Constant 2.713 150.104

Zeroorder

Tolerance

Figure 1 below illustrates the significantly different slopes of the OER sections versus the non-OER sections using standardized course difficulty to predict course grade . The plot in Figure 1 is at zero-order for simple visualization purposes . However , it is very similar to , and does not distort the image based on the plot of the predicted values that accounts for all the covariates in the model . As seen in Figure 1 , the negative slope of the OER course is less severe than the negative slope of the non-OER courses .

Discussion

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